1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to enterprise server technologies and more specifically to efficient on demand provisioning of servers for specific software sets.
2. Related Art
Provisioning of a server generally entails installation of a pre-defined specific software set, containing one or more softwares in the server (assuming that the server has a required hardware configuration). The installation steps are often performed by an administrator either manually or using appropriately designed installation software. Once provisioned, the server is ready to process requests received from client systems for an application environment constituted by executing the installed software set.
On-demand provisioning refers to a requirement for provisioning of a server within a short duration, typically from the time the requirement is identified. On-demand provisioning is often required in server cluster environments, where each cluster contains one or more servers servicing client requests. On determination of performance degradation, for example, when the service time for a user request exceeds a pre-defined threshold, it may be necessary that a new server be provisioned (with the same software set required for the cluster) and added to the cluster in a short duration to enable the same/more user requests to be serviced with acceptable performance.
In a prior approach, provisioning is performed assuming that a server is not pre-installed with any of the softwares in a desired software set. Such an assumption necessitates installation of all the softwares in the desired software set (including installing of any softwares that were present previously), thereby increasing the time required to provision the server. The approach may accordingly fail to meet the short duration requirements of on-demand provisioning.
According to another prior approach, groups of servers are pre-installed with corresponding desired software sets and kept ready for provisioning, thereby enabling on-demand provisioning requests to be processed within a short duration. A drawback with such an approach is that an on-demand provisioning request for a specific software set may not be processed due to non-availability of servers in the group corresponding to the specific software set, even though there may be servers available in other groups (pre-installed with other software sets).
It may be desirable that on-demand provisioning of servers for specific software sets be made more efficient.
In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.